


It Never Gets Easier

by shadowhuntingdauntlessdemigod



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Angst, romanogers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24573655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowhuntingdauntlessdemigod/pseuds/shadowhuntingdauntlessdemigod
Summary: Steve is injured in a firefight, thus saving Natasha's life, but what if that decision costs him his life? What if he never wakes up? It's bad enough that he misses their anniversary, but Natasha can't imagine him not being there for others in the future.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 10
Kudos: 90





	It Never Gets Easier

**Author's Note:**

> This starts out as more h/c but there's some fluff at the end, I promise ;) Previously posted on fan fiction 4/25/15 and I edited it a bunch to repost here. Kudos and comments (anything from an emoji to an essay) make my day! Thanks for reading!

Natasha woke with a start, ready to attack whomever had entered the area uninvited, blinking rapidly to get used to the stark white light that poured into her eyes. A kind nurse smiled at her and held out a cup of coffee.

“Thought you might need this,” she said softly and handed Natasha the warm paper cup, which she accepted with a quiet thank-you as it crinkled in her grasp. The nurse left without another word, leaving Natasha to the coffee which was steadily warming up her uninjured hand.

It was early in the morning, dawn light beginning to enter the hospital room through the white blinds that were cracked open ever so slightly. The building was still cool, but would gradually warm as the day went on. Natasha shifted herself so that her legs were curled up next to her in the padded chair as she took a sip of the dark brew.

The steady beeping of the heart monitor eased the worries that had been growing in her mind since she awoke. Although she tried not to, her eyes drifted to Steve, who lay among the crisp white sheets in the hospital bed.

Four days ago, they had stormed an enemy compound, only to have to pull out having realized that it was a trap. But not in time. An explosion went off right as they were pulling out in the jeeps, soldiers following behind and opening fire on the shaken team.

Steve had taken a bullet to the chest for her, something she didn't take lightly. Natasha could still hear his warning echoing in her ears. The way that he had selflessly jumped in front of the bullet that would have undoubtedly ended her life.

Sure, the fall to the ground had injured her arm, but she had been alive. For a second after the initial attack, seeing Steve gasping for air on the ground with a red stain slowly spreading across his chest, she was more scared than she had been in years. Natasha pulled off his soot covered helmet, revealing the dirty blonde locks underneath. His eyes were wide and unfocused as Natasha took his shield from his hands and lay it down next to him.

She had said in her calmest voice that it would be okay, but she was still unsure herself. Natasha told him to slow his breathing, calm down, which even she was having a hard time doing. Natasha could still feel his blood coating the palms of her hands when she pressed them to his wound to try and stop the blood flow. There was little more she could do, even being as well-versed in field medic training as she was. His choked breaths rang through her ears more than the enemy’s bullets did.

Natasha paid no attention as one of their agents took down the enemy, securing the location for pickup. She was focused on Steve.

When the medics pulled them both into the first aid Quinjet, quickly making its way back to New York, Natasha’s hands were coated in blood. The blood of a dying man. It coated all of the minuscule lines in her hands, staining her palms a deep crimson. She had paid no attention to the work they were doing to her own arm, and was instead consumed with worry as the doctors ripped away Steve’s blue uniform to expose the bullet wound.

Sharp, stinging pain erupted in her arm as the medic set the bone and carefully wrapped it up. Natasha barely felt it. She was more focused on the other medics shouting orders back and forth, trying to keep Steve awake and stable. Whenever the yelling stopped and the sound of the engines was a whisper, his ragged breathing filled in the silence.

It was not long before drops of his blood made their way onto the metal floor, where Natasha stared at them so she did not have to see Steve struggle for breath.

The ten minute flight to the hospital seemed to last an eternity.

What to focus on, what to devote her entire being to, what little images she allowed to slip by. It was no lie that her mind was being taken up by the _what ifs_. Just like every time he got hurt. It never got any easier.

When they had wheeled Steve in on a gurney, shouting orders to prep the operating room, nurses and staff had laid eyes on Natasha, who was cursing out the doctor for not letting her into the room. With no time to fly to the proper SHIELD medical facility, they were at a regular hospital, and if Natasha didn’t know better she would say the staff looked a bit frightened. Doctors were operating on _Captain America_. They had reason to be nervous. However, much of that initial fear dissipated when they got into their work, trying to fix the broken soldier behind closed doors.

Steve had shattered his femur and two of his ribs in the attack, an array of burns also scarring his left arm. Natasha had escaped with only minor burns and a not too severely broken arm, thanks to him, and the limb was now casted and in a sling across her chest.

Natasha set down her coffee on the table next to the chair and turned her attention towards Steve. His face was still pale, the gashes from the battle almost finished healing. A white bandage wrapped around his bare chest, faintly spotted with blood. Yet another bandage covered his still healing burns and his leg was propped up in a cast.

As if that were not bad enough, he was also in a coma.

Various machines were hooked up to him, an IV steadily dripping fluids into a clear plastic tube that disappeared into the white sheets. A clear cannula wrapped around his neck and ended in his nose, supplying him with the extra oxygen that his lungs could not quite get. Another tube went down into his lungs, hooked up to a machine that pushed air rhythmically in and out of them. It was to decrease the stress his body was under, was what the doctor had said.

She took a deep breath, remembering how halfway through his chest operation to remove the bullet from his lung and fix the broken ribs, he had stopped responding. It had taken three agents to hold her back from bursting into the operating room when a nurse had given her the news.

After the operation had finished, he was still unresponsive. The doctors shook their heads as they removed their white gloves stained in red and left the operating room with hushed voices. Nurses wheeled Steve into the ICU. Natasha stood stock still, unable to move. If an assassin had burst through the window to murder her, she would still have not been able to move.

Her hitched breaths caught in her throat as she walked down the hall with steps more confident than she was, demanding to know where he was. They sat her down in a chair and explained the situation. All the while, patients throughout the hospital were in agony. Once the nurse left, Natasha listened to each of the voices, each in their own world of pain. Just for a moment, she wanted to hear Steve’s voice. At least it would have meant that he was awake. But she was not that lucky.

The doctors reaffirmed to her that Steve was, in fact, lucky. The damage could have been worse. The bullet could have shattered a rib on impact. It could have cut a major artery. What if it had? Natasha had never liked dealing in hypotheticals, but at the moment they were the only things that filled her mind.

Natasha spent the rest of the day in the ICU, listening to the sounds of people in pain. It was only a few hours later when he was moved to a regular room and she was finally allowed to see him and the sounds subsided.

They had fixed all of his injuries and declared him to be in a coma, with a low to mid-range GCS score, and hoped that it would eventually improve.

She had not seen his calming blue eyes since she had her hands pressed to his chest, trying to help. And how she longed to see them.

Fury was not happy, to say the least. Natasha was worried, hell, she was scared. But she didn't let anyone know that. For two and a half days, he had lay in the bed, unmoving and unresponsive to the world around him.

That was not long to be in a coma, for a normal person. But for someone who healed as fast as Steve did, the nagging sense in her mind grew that _what if there was something else wrong?_

A day and a half later and there still wasn’t much improvement.

Natasha scooted her chair closer to the bed so she could hold his hand. She knew he could pull through this, he always did, but it never got easier seeing him in pain. Especially not since he had finally mustered the courage to ask her out, exactly two years ago to the day, which she found ironic.

Sure, they had spent their anniversary together, but she had been the only one that was really present. As she held his cool hand in hers, listening to the monitor beeping with his steady heartbeat, tears began to cloud her eyes.

Angrily, she blinked them away. “You had better wake up soon, Steve. Or I am going to go crazy,” she threatened, smirking slightly. Natasha believed that he could hear her, but she wasn't quite sure. That didn't stop her from filling the days telling him stories about anything that happened to cross her mind. It was the only power she held to hopefully keep him anchored to the world. “It’s honestly pretty lonely out here without you.”

This was the longest he had ever been in a coma. He had gotten hurt plenty of times, and always bounced back. Natasha knew that he would come back, but each day of waiting was more agonizing than the rest. A lone tear fell from her face, dotting the white sheet beneath it before she could flick it away. Natasha let go of his hand and stood up from the chair, shaking out her stiff limbs. “I’m going to get some breakfast, but I’ll be back soon. Don’t you go anywhere.”

The rest of the day was spent the exact same way the other four had been. Sitting by his side, telling him aimless stories that had no purpose. She was essentially talking to herself, but she had no other way to pass the time. And the others knew well enough to not try and drag her away from his side.

After the nurses came to do their nightly rounds, jotting down notes and checking vitals, Natasha knew that the room would be quiet until dawn the next morning, unless something alerted them otherwise.

During one of her short trips to the cafeteria earlier, Steve had started fighting the breathing machine, so it had been removed. One less tube to worry about, one less source of white noise in the room. “It’s a good thing, a sign he should be coming back around,” the nurse reaffirmed as she finished checking Steve over. Following a slight adjustment of the remaining cannula, she then bid the assassin a good night.

Natasha’s brow scrunched together in worry. If he was well enough to mainly breathe on his own, then why the hell wasn't he waking up? Was there something else wrong that the doctors hadn't caught? She shook the thought from her mind, re-implanting the reminder that he would get through this. He always did.

“Happy anniversary,” she whispered and planted a soft kiss onto Steve’s cheek.

She could remember the day he had finally asked her out. After weeks of sheepish looks and stuttered sentences, Steve had finally come up to her after one of their missions. With a blush in his cheeks, he asked if she was open the following week for dinner.

“It’s about time,” she had replied with a smile on her face, chuckling as Steve’s blush deepened. And so began their relationship.

She had never imagined that something like that could happen, and never with a man of Steve’s character. But they had fought side by side, seen each other through highs and lows, and accepted everything that went unsaid. It worked, and she was grateful, even though it was just one more thing she could lose in the unpredictable life she led.

Sighing and mentally preparing herself for another monotonous day ahead, Natasha got herself comfortable in the chair and dozed off to sleep.

* * *

“Natasha,” a quiet voice whispered to her. Natasha opened her green eyes and waited a moment for them to clear before she saw Clint standing in front of her, holding a mug of coffee and a colorfully wrapped box. “Morning, sleepyhead.”

“Call me that again and I’ll steal your hearing aids in your sleep,” she warned, not fully awake enough to make the proper threat.

Clint chuckled and handed her the coffee. She took it with her free hand and in-between sips was able to ask, “What’s in there?”

He snapped his fingers and a “now I remember” look crossed his face. “This is for you.”

Clint handed her the gift, which crinkled in her hands as she smoothed the paper. “What’s this for?” she asked quizzically.

Clint shrugged his shoulders. “Steve left it for you before the mission. Told me to give it to you just in case he couldn’t, always prepared for everything, you know how he is. Happy anniversary, by the way.” He gave her a sad smirk. “Call if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Clint,” Natasha said quietly. He walked towards the door and waved at her before exiting.

Natasha looked to Steve, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, but still no signs that he was awake or would be awake any time soon. “Nice of you to get me a gift, but you didn't have to. I didn't have any time to get you one, unless you wanted an enemy rifle,” she joked, unwrapping the present with care. She would have gotten him one, of course, in the days after the mission, had it ended differently.

The present was a box, plain and simple. When she opened it, a small bag and a teddy bear were brought to light. The bear had blonde fur and was dressed in a Captain America cotton uniform. A generic bear; black plastic eyes and nose, a stitched mouth, but it also held a small shield, which was attached to the bear’s left arm with a few stitches. A blue mask with an ‘A’ on the front and small white wings was pulled over the bear’s face.

Natasha chuckled faintly. “Now I know what you’d look like as a teddy bear.”

She stopped when she saw the button on the bear’s paw that said “press here”. The fur was soft and silky beneath her fingers. Natasha gently pressed it with her good hand and listened to the message.

“Natasha, you are the love of my life. I’m sorry I’m not here to say it to you in person, but better late than never.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “Natasha Romanoff, will you marry me?”

The words took her by so much surprise that she almost dropped the bear. Making sure she heard the animal right, she listened to the message again, tears glazing over her eyes as she looked at the unconscious man in front of her.

Setting down the bear, she opened the bag to find a smaller box. Upon opening that, a ring glistened inside the black fabric. A dainty silver band that encompassed a medium sized diamond, both of which glittered in the white light. Natasha brought a hand up to her mouth and nodded, although she knew that Steve could not see her.

“Well?” came a soft, unused voice from the bed. Natasha brought her head up to see Steve looking at her through half lidded eyes. He smiled, showing his white teeth at the sight of her holding the ring.

“Yes. I will marry you, Steve Rogers.” She bent down over the bed and kissed his cheek before wrapping her good arm around him. Natasha felt his strong and steady arms slowly go around her back as he took a sigh of relief. She could feel the cool plastic of the heart monitor on Steve’s index finger even through her shirt, the recorder on the side of the bed beeping more intensely. When she pulled away, there were tears glistening in both of their eyes. She laughed slightly as she wiped them away, the tension from the past days finally dissipating from her tired muscles. “You had me worried this time.”

“I couldn't leave my best girl. Not on our anniversary,” he replied.

“How did you wake up?” Natasha asked.

Steve shrugged his shoulders to the best of his ability. “I heard you talking to me, Nat, everything you said. Heard the bear too, figured I was late, and tried to snap out of it.”

He said it as if it were the simplest explanation in the world. His words were slower than normal, but he seemed more alert the longer he stayed awake. Natasha was tempted to press the call button for a nurse just to make sure everything was alright, but it had been four long, long days, and Steve seemed alright enough at the moment. The nurse could wait five minutes.

Natasha smiled. “Move over,” she ordered. Steve moved over as much as he could in the bed, leaving room for Natasha’s lithe frame to slide in, even with her sling. She rested her head gently by his shoulder, being mindful of the bandages that still covered his chest and still mending ribs. Her scarlet hair fanned out over his tan skin as she shifted comfortably next to him. With a grunt, Steve’s arm wrapped protectively around her shoulder.

“You feeling okay?” she asked sweetly, titling her head up so that her green eyes could look curiously into his blue ones.

“About how you’d expect. It never gets easier, does it?” he replied.

“Not really. Just a part of the job that they forgot to label in the fine print,” Natasha laughed to herself with a smile on her face, red lips peeled back against her white teeth.

Steve placed a gentle kiss on top of her scarlet locks, the faint aroma of vanilla enveloping and calming him. “I love you,” he murmured into her hair.

“You have made that abundantly clear,” she chuckled. “And I love you too.”


End file.
